


My Name is Tony

by AdorkableSmile



Category: Iron Man (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Gen, Inspired by Mad Max Series (Movies), Mad Max AU, apocalypse au
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-03-12
Updated: 2016-08-19
Packaged: 2018-05-26 07:33:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 8
Words: 20,110
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6229330
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AdorkableSmile/pseuds/AdorkableSmile
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The end-times. Planet Earth is reduced to sand and dust; the few humans who remain are savages, scavenging for water and food in the abandoned shopping malls and houses of the past. The Avengers are scattered, nobody knows where they have gone. But one man aims to find them, and bring them back together.</p><p>His name is Tony.<br/>His world is fire and blood.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Day 1: Light at the End of the Tunnel

**Author's Note:**

> This is a little something I was working on not long after I saw Mad Max: Fury Road. I've got a few chapters already written, so I'll post them while I work on the Moonshine Trail. Hopefully in a few weeks I'll be back on track with that and then I can start writing this some more too.
> 
> NOTE: Apologies for sporadic updates (at best). I've been dealing with mental health issues, and on top of that I'm in my final year at uni; coursework, part-time jobs, and searching for graduate jobs are taking up the bulk of my time. I'm still writing, but it's incredibly slow. Thank you all for your patience, I promise I'll have these updating as much as I can over the next few months.

_My name is Tony._

_My World is fire and blood._

Avengers Tower. Once it had stood tall and proud among the buildings of the New York skyline, a needle-like beacon in the middle of the gridlock squares. Now it was a thin spire, perhaps a half-dozen floors poking up through the build-up of sand which breezed in through every tiny crack and lodged itself in crevices and nooks, nesting in the building.

He could hear it moving at night. Even when there was no wind, the sand moved. He swore it was alive.

He stared out over the dusty, crumbling city blocks now, apartments flat terrain under loose sand dunes, no longer was there any road to speak of around here. Most of the city had become sand, of course. They hadn't prevented it, these Avengers, they hadn't stopped the weapon in time. And what had they avenged? Nothing! They had run, fled when it became apparent that they could do nothing to turn the tide. Not this time.

He was covered in rags, head to foot. No part of his body was uncovered. On his feet were good, solid boots, boots that would last lifetimes. Boots like those ran in the family. On his eyes, goggles which kept out the sun and sand in equal measure. These days it hardly rained. Usually the storms were sandstorms.

The sound of engines in the distance. Something fast-moving, loud. Bikers? Possibly; the cliff-riders never came out this far, but sometimes people got through. They would be looking for the tower.

They were not going to find him here with it.

He tramped back inside through the hole where the expansive windows had been and descended. Avengers Tower had been comparatively lucky in the disaster; windows had been blown out, sure, but for the most part it held, and sand piled up around it rather than filling it from bottom to top. Nonetheless, he had to wade through a floor of sand to where the grains fell to the basement down the elevator shaft.

 _Vssssshhhhhh!_ That was the sound the cable made against his gloves. It was a new sound, not heard since he'd first ventured down here after everyone else left. He didn't go all the way down, only a few floors. There was no telling what was at the very bottom, he'd leave that to the scavengers. For now, he sat on a ledge made of scrap metal and pried open the doors he'd kept shut for so long.

_My world is fire and blood._

The old SHIELD truck sat in the darkness, illuminated by one high-power industrial lamp. Dust particles filled the air, and as he wiped the side of the vehicle absent-mindedly his hand came away covered in a film of dust too. Sand, grit, particles of all kinds, maybe even some from the dead; they all floated here. He was glad he hadn't needed to break the windows, that at least was a blessing. The cab was clean.

He'd removed a lot of the weight, taking out the unnecessary back panel which separated the cab from the spacious interior, now stacked with tinned food, some spare repulsor gloves, and solar panels. It left him enough space for a narrow, utilitarian bed, under which he'd shoved a toolbox, some personal effects and an old, battered helmet.

He turned the key in the ignition. Silence. He sighed contentedly. _Perfect_. The read-out displayed full power; yes sir, solar had been the way to go!

He pressed a button on a remote. No longer necessary, he tossed it. Save weight, that was the goal.

In the distance, something rumbled. The building shook a little with the strain of the sand on top of the mechanical parts. As things happened around him, he reached across to the passenger seat and took up the metal gloves lying there. He put one on each hand; they were smaller than the ones he'd been used to, but he hadn't had call to wear anything like them in a long time. These were skeletons of the real deal, almost literally. Mechanical parts spiderwebbed out to each fingertip and back to the blue plate at the centre which faintly glowed.

He revved the engine. It growled reflexively, although there was a delay which hinted at its not being entirely mechanical; he could forgive that. Lord help him, he wasn't perfect.

Light at the end of the tunnel. He gunned the throttle, and now he could hear the other engines loud and clear, outside. They'd seen the opening of the gate, they were waiting to ambush him. He put his foot to the metal and accelerated, the tyres finding purchase as the vehicle leapt forward enthusiastically. He burst out into the white light.

It took a moment for his eyes to adjust. When they did, he found himself barrelling down a steep, sandy ridge, towards the bikers who had waited for ambush at the wrong tunnel. Suckers! Score one for Avengers tower. They scattered, diving down the mountainous dune and away from the black van as it barrelled after them. He'd been clever; raised the suspension, cut the weight, fine-tuned the engine, even converted it to solar power. But that wouldn't matter if he turned here, and on this sand that was almost bound to happen.

So find a way to stop it, genius. Alright, here goes; no help, no plan, just you and the van and the terrain. If you survive this, I'll have to come up with a name for you...

He flipped a switch; the ram on the front of the van shunted downwards, becoming a plough. He dug up the sand ahead of him, smoothing the path and, although making it steeper, slowing his descent. By now the bikers were regrouping on either side of him; they'd take out the windows, and then they'd take him if he wasn't careful. Their bikes bristled with spikes, but much more dangerous were the guns he noticed each rider wore on their legs. And where did they keep their ammo?

He rolled down the window, praying sand hadn't stuck the mechanism, and leaned a hand out. The biker tilted his head as he stared at the blue disc at the centre of the palm.

There was a fizzle and a burst of blue, and the man's saddlebag was blazing. He looked back and started, losing control as he twisted the handlebars wildly to regain composure. One of his partners caught the brunt of the bike driving into his leg and yelled; it was that moment that the ammunition in the saddlebag exploded, one by one, sending bullets whizzing in every direction.

He ducked. Something hot and sharp flashed overhead and cracked the window on the other side. Well, damn. That didn't last long – now he'd have to find something to cover that. Maybe he could straighten out an empty tin, have a bit of armour there...

A bullet from the other side smashed the window entirely. Okay fine, forget the armour idea. We get a sandstorm, we'll point the other side at it and ride it out. He turned to the rider who'd shot out his window and brought his other hand up. The beam caught the rider in the chest and he was thrown from his bike.

After that the ground began to level out, and the bikers peeled off between the building tops. He could hear them, still keeping pace, but they weren't so keen on getting close. He sat back for a while and let the soothing sounds of 4x4 wheels on dusty tracks lull him into a trance as he kept his heading, straight ahead. Due south was the way to go, apparently; he remembered that, from an old conversation he'd had. He couldn't remember who had told him that. But due south, he'd find water, he'd find more food, maybe he'd even find the Avengers.

Sooner or later the bikers peeled away; perhaps they decided a man with so much firepower wasn't worth the trouble. Perhaps they were just waiting for a better time to strike. After another hour, dusk arrived. With the setting sun casting purple hues over the sand, he stopped driving and turned off the van. He got out and started a fire, gathering a few stray branches, plus whatever wood he could easily get from nearby apartments. He was burning the remains of a cheap dresser, started with a light blast from his repulsor. He removed the goggles and unwrapped the rags from his face, and Tony Stark sat down beside his van to cook a tin of beans.

'They taste fine cold,' he muttered to himself. 'I don't know why you insist on heating them up. Just takes longer to eat 'em that way.' He kept one repuslor glove on; eating with them on was problematic at best, but he didn't like to be undefended, not out here.

'This was just gonna be a scavenging mission,' he said to the beans. 'Shouldn't be gone more than a week. But water's getting low, we need some more of that. Not much in the truck, maybe four days' worth? Four days' drive south, where will that take us? If we can find a road, maybe somewhere useful.' He looked around as the sun cast long shadows over the landscape.

'It's all this desert,' he muttered. 'Changes things.'

He didn't care to go back and search through the scrap of the bikers' corpses. That was a long way away, uphill. Avengers tower had been completely self-sufficient, energy-wise. Produce-wise, well, there was a lot of R&D. That hadn't left much space for home-grown crops. Tony wolfed down the beans and then went into the back of the van. He rummaged about a for a while, eventually drawing the toolbox from its space under the bed. He set about the can until it was a piece of rectangular-ish metal. One down, maybe a dozen to go. At least. He missed that window already; it was going to be a cold night.

He put out the fire after a while and climbed in the front of the van, closing and locking the doors. Everything was back in place; he took the blanket from his small bed and wrapped it around himself before starting the engine again and trundling off through the wastes once more. Cold weather made for better driving, kept him alert and awake, and anyway he wouldn't sleep much with the window blown out. He kept his eyes peeled for a replacement. Most of the cars were buried.

His lights were on full, but it was still difficult to see far ahead of himself. The night stretched on into infinity around the figure-eight beams the van cast weakly, but there was nothing to see but the monotony of sand. Occasionally he heard the howl of some wild animal – what it was he dared not speculate. His repulsors were firmly in hand all night.

Dawn broke, almost suddenly, and as the sun rose on his left he shielded his eyes. When it was high enough to light the shifting dunes he put on his goggles and drove for a little longer before stopping. He tried to roll up the window on the driver's side and was met with the sound of crackling sand grinding together. Well, that would be the first problem to solve today. He got the toolbox and replaced the blanket on his bed messily.

He practically ripped apart the door and cleaned it out as best he could with a rag before trying the mechanism again. Still the sad grinding, and his window only reached up halfway. He shouted and kicked the van's huge tyre.

'Damn it!' he cried. 'You're nothing but a big old sandbag, are you? God damn sandbag...' he grumbled. He started up a fire and scrawled the word SANDBAG in the dust on the sides of the van. There. You've got a name now.

The day grew warmer. He set up the solar panels and licked out the last of the tomato sauce from the bean tin that made his breakfast. He didn't want to break into the water supply unless he had to. Now, though, it was time to sleep. He put out the fire, scattered the ashes so they were disguised into the sand, and hid in his van until the silky embrace of dusk woke him up.

Or he would've done, had he not been woken a few hours later by the scraping and crashing as someone tried to make off with the solar panels.

 


	2. Day 2-A: Microwave Pizza

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tony meets an unexpected ally and their pet; they decide to go for pizza.

'Mine.'

Tony's hand was up, the repulsor pointed squarely at her head. In an instant the solar panel was on the ground and her hands were on her bow, arrow pulled back and aimed at his head.

It would've been a standoff, had Tony not seen the dog.

'That... That looks like-'

'I thought I recognised that tech!' The bow was down in an instant and she was back to hauling away the panel.

'Hey! Hey!' Tony strode after her and ripped the panel from her hands. 'This is mine!' he snapped.

'Well I need it!' she shot back, and the dog barked at her raised voice and leapt forward; Tony stumbled back, letting go of the panel.

'Hey!' He got to his feet and hurried after them as they walked away. 'Hey, I never said you could take that!'

'Yeah, but I need it!' she insisted, and this time there was less anger there. Tony stared at her. No, he decided, she wasn't angry. She was-

'It's the dog,' she said quietly. 'The microwave's broken. I gotta cook his pizza.'

'You're feeding your dog pizza?' Tony's eyebrow arched and he looked at the dog. It looked... well, healthy. For now.

'We ran outta dog food.'

Tony sighed. He held out his hand sternly. The woman's lip trembled and the dog cocked its head to the side and whined, but she handed the solar panel back. Tony dragged it back to the van.

'Think you can wait twenty minutes?' he called to their retreating backs. They stopped and turned, and Tony grinned at the delight which registered on the woman's face.

'Y'know, Barton talked a lot about you.'

She stared at him, eyes wide as she listened. There wasn't much else to do on the journey. The van rumbled through the sand, Tony's eyes scanning the buildings to either side.

'He was always really proud of you,' he continued. 'Said you were gonna be great, with a bit of help.'

'Help? From him?' she laughed. 'He wasn't exactly the greatest help, for the record.'

'Hey, respect your elders. He's got years of experience.'

'Yeah, but I'm just that good,' she replied with a wink. Tony snorted.

'So you really are Kate Bishop?' he asked. 'I mean, you've got the ego; you're just missing the LA tan and the daddy issues.'

'Dad's dead,' Kate replied, turning away from Stark to stare out of the window. 'It was the weapon-'

'Weapon took a lotta people, kid,' Stark said. 'That was years ago now, we've all gotta move on.'

'Says the guy who was living in Stark Tower this whole time.' Kate stuck her tongue out at him and turned to Lucky.

'You okay there, boy?' She smiled as he barked enthusiastically.

'It's Avengers Tower!' Tony growled. 'It's Avengers Tower. It's... it's not Stark Tower, it's Avengers...'

Kate had recoiled against the passenger door, her bow in hand. Tony was zoned out, muttering about the tower incessantly, his hands gripped the steering wheel tight enough to turn his knuckles white. Suddenly he stopped and turned to Kate.

'Did I say something wrong?' he asked. Kate shook her head. Tony stared at her incredulously before shrugging and staring out of the window.

'There.'

It only took them a few minutes to find a building with an opening. It was an enormous shopping complex, half the windows busted open so that as they stepped inside the broken glass cracked and ground over the sand which shifted under their feet. They crested a dune and rode it down to the ground floor as the sand shifted and collapsed beneath their feet. A whisper which turned to a roar of white noise, then their feet touched level ground and it mellowed, shivering back to a whisper, calling to Tony in hushed voices which sounded all too familiar.

'Stay alert,' Kate said, nocking an arrow and leading the way. Her violet eyes pierced the shadow which had overcome the mall, weak sunlight filtering in through the dusty windows and pricking the floor with slivers of brightness where it could press through strongly enough. Tony hid the light of the repulsors as best he could before following on.

'What are we here for, anyway?' Kate asked.

'Dog food,' Tony said. 'Duh. Oh yeah, and there's a place that does pizza here, if we can get 'em working I'll fire up the ovens and cook you some fresh.'

'Okay, why are you being so nice?' Kate asked. 'Clint always said you were a primo asshat.'

'Yeah, well... it's been a long time since I had company.' Kate shook her head and took point, scouting the way ahead with her eagle eyes.

'Escalators are busted!' she called back as Tony rounded the corner behind her. 'I mean, _really_ busted. Find the stairs?'

'I don't suppose you've got any of those fancy trick arrows with you?' Tony asked. 'My kingdom for a grappling hook!' Kate shrugged and peeled off from the main route, looking into the dusty shop interiors.

'Oh wow! Look at all these clothes!' she peered in, eyeing the fancy gowns and dapper jackets on display in a small shop. She searched around for something to smash the glass with.

A flash of blue light arced over her head. She yelped as the glass smashed, before getting to her feet and glaring at Tony.

'You're welcome,' he said indignantly. He kicked a trolley into a sand bank and wandered off himself.

It took him a few minutes to find a way up, but there was a dune he was able to scramble over which took him over the balcony of the second floor. Along here the windows were filled with men's clothing, movies and music – it didn't take much longer for his feet to be drawn to a tech shop, displays sprawled across the ground but untouched by humanity. He aimed his repulsor at the window.

When the weapon had hit, nobody had had time to loot the shops. Most of them were still intact, like this one – there weren't many who survived as had use of fancy clothes, or pointless gadgets like the remote control car Tony was unboxing now. He tore some batteries from the wall and slotted them in place, racing the toy around the room and ramping it out of the window, where it disappeared from view; he heard it clatter over the edge of the balcony, and then a distant echo as it smashed into the ground floor. He sighed and threw away the remote, staring around the room.

Something else caught his eye. He busted open the display cabinet and looked at the gadget more closely. Well, well, well; perhaps it was his lucky day after all...

The sound of gunfire distracted him momentarily, but he grabbed the toy and jumped behind the counter to begin his work.

-

As soon as the van had stopped they were on it like flies, but Tony's security measures kept them out. They were blasted off the sides and away from the windows with crackling electric zaps which blasted them fully feet into the air. They cursed and buzzed back angrily, before conferring between each other for a while. Yes! What a great idea! They drew their guns, fully-stocked assault rifles, each painted over with coats of black paint to stop the barrels reflecting in the sunlight and giving away their position. As one, they worked at removing one of the ground floor window panes.

They might, at one point, have been ordinary people. But now there were none. There were only the savages of the ruined lands, and these three were notorious. They removed the pane silently and slid through the gap, replacing the glass neatly behind them. Guns at the ready, they moved in.

Lucky tipped her off before they were even around the corner. He turned and growled, and Kate spun, arrow at the ready. Then, the faint buzzing was carried to her ears, a radio crackle of unintelligible voices trying to speak quietly in the echo chamber building. Oh crap! Not these guys!

'Come on, Lucky!' she hissed, drawing the dog back into the shadows and heading quietly towards the stairs at the back of the shop.

The three of them cast long shadows into the penumbra of the half-working lights on the ground floor. They trained their guns on the balconies, the storefronts, the sand banks which littered the place. This was a new car, one they'd never seen before, and they did not know what was in store for them.

Something moved out of the corner of their eye and they turned, letting off a burst of gunfire. One of the others slapped them upside the head and reprimanded them in a hushed buzz of radio static. They got back into formation.

Lucky's growls echoed all around the mall as he and Kate passed by overhead, wraith-like. Whatever had caused that sound, it was probably Tony's doing, Kate thought as she looked around frantically for the man. Nowhere to be seen! Had they already got him? Whatever! She'd find the dog food herself! She looked around, and on the third floor she caught of a glimpse of a sign which looked promising. Pet shop? She hoped so. She searched around for a staircase or escalator to get up there, and her questing eyes caught a glimpse of the scavengers in the clothes shop, already on the same floor. Crap!

There were footsteps throughout the dust in the clothes shop, one of them pointed out. They kept their guns drawn, playing follow-the-leader as they moved single-file through the store, goggles staring in every direction. They moved as quietly as possible, but still with the clicks and clatters of a military load of weaponry on their persons. Out on the mezzanine the shadows seemed to grow closer and more restricting, and it became difficult to penetrate the choking darkness. They each pressed a button on their goggles, and for a moment their world was dark, and then overly bright. When they could see again, the pointman's view was one of fur and teeth.

They screamed.

Kate was not as far away as she would've liked to be, but she was far enough that even with night vision their aim would have to be really good.

Luckily, hers was.

While the pointman wrestled with Lucky, Kate took a shot at the one in the middle. They screamed as the arrow punctured their side, but turned and fired anyway.

'Lucky, here!' Kate screamed as bullets peppered the wall nearby. Lucky broke off and sprinted back towards her as she loosed another arrow; this one took the third scavenger in the side of the head, shorting out their goggles. As they struggled to remove them the first buzzer got to their feet, tenderly prodding at bite marks and scratches which had punctured their suit. The second one hissed something which crawled with malice as they broke off the arrow shaft and clutched their side. Kate, meanwhile, had disappeared with Lucky. They crouched behind cover and discussed their plan, buzzing incoherently over each other. The first one silenced the conversation with a final word, and they raised their guns to continue once again.

Only now, they realised they weren't the only ones buzzing in this place.

'Kate, are you there?'

It was whispered through static and sounded like falling sand; at first, she didn't believe it was real. She wondered if she was hallucinating.

'Ah, there you are.' It shifted towards her, buzzing excitedly and hovering level with her face. 'Check it out, I found some of these! I'm back on the ground floor now, I've got a big thing going on here, but it's only gonna work once.'

'Tony?' she asked eventually, peering at the drone as it... well, droned on in front of her.

'Yeah, duh! Anyway, I need you to draw their fire and distract them for a while, do you think you can draw them all to the ground floor? There's a hi-fi shop down there, they need to be in front of that.'

'Why?' Kate hissed. If a drone had eyes it could roll, it would have done here. Tony was wishing he'd added some, just so she knew how he was feeling.

'Just do it, okay?' he asked. 'It'll be awesome, I promise. Oh, and I got you your dog food while you were distracting those guys. You're welcome, by the way.'

Kate sighed and grabbed another arrow from her quiver. This one looked a little different from the others. But she got to her feet and peered out of the store.

It was another clothing shop, towards the end of the mall, only here the whole building was buried under sand. The glass on top was threatening to break at any moment, she knew she couldn't stay long.

The buzzers were coming towards her, peering in every shop. One of them would go in and sweep it, the others would stand guard. She was glad they were being so thorough. She stepped out.

'Hey!' she called, and the two of them turned in surprise. They raised their guns, but the arrow was already on its way. It arced lazily through the air and landed clumsily, stuck in the floor between the two of them.

'You missed!' one of them might have buzzed – it was hard to tell, she never could understand them – but she was already running, and the arrow was already taking effect. It exploded, thick black smoke choking the buzzers; they reeled as the third one rushed back to see what was going on. There was a harshly buzzed order, and they split off from the choking pair to follow Kate.

'Perfect!' the Tony-drone said. 'You've got one of them after you now! I'll try and separate the other two.'

'Oh, great!' Kate snapped, ignoring the escalator in the shop and instead leaping the balcony. 'This is a perfect plan, Stark; just you wait 'til I find you!'

Tony Stark grinned from his hiding place, his face lit up by the light of a screen. This apocalypse was getting fun.

 


	3. Day 2-B: Drone Combat

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kate and Tony are ambushed by a trio of scavengers! So Kate decides to ambush them back. Meanwhile, Tony works behind the scenes to even the odds...

The smoke cleared, eventually. It was a trick arrow, designed for a getaway or a distraction, and it had done its job properly. One buzzed cautiously, and was met with an answering buzz from Three in their earpiece. Two groaned, clutching their head, but got to their feet and raised their gun. The night vision still worked fine, they noted with satisfaction; they took point this time, heading around to the gadget store on the other side of the mezzanine; the window was broken and there was a light behind the counter. One followed on, watching the floors above and below.

Something was hissing and crackling behind the counter, it sounded like someone welding.

'No, please,' a voice said. 'Don't come any closer. I don't wanna have to hurt you.' The arrogance! Two raised their gun and stepped in close, aiming down over the counter.

There was a hiss as it leapt out at them, and they fell backwards as they fired. An urgent buzzing from One; are you okay? What happened? Two got to their feet, where they now saw, next to the counter, a button underneath a sticker. Behind the counter, and animatronic spider now shot with holes. It smoked and crackled, whirring sadly on its broken motors.

Nothing, Two answered back. Just some crackpot trick.

'You think I'm a crackpot?' the voice asked over the PA system. As one, One and Two stared at each other.

'I'm no crackpot,' the voice continued as they broke into a run, heading for the security room. One was ahead, so they triggered the car which caught Two's attention as it scurried past, remote controlled wheels whirring excitedly.

'I'm a god,' the voice announced, as the string attached to the back of the car went taught and pulled the pin out of the contraption on the floor.

There was a bang and One was screaming. Two flinched as the sound hit them, deafening them temporarily; when they came back, One was on their knees, frantically tearing at the goggles. They clawed them off their face, gasping and rubbing their eyes. There was a moment of silence, and then the terrified, quavering voice buzzed through the radio again.

I can't see, One whispered. And then they screamed. I can't see! I can't see! I can't see!

Three shook. The girl with the bow had disappeared into the shadows again, and the flashbang trap had managed to hurt their ears too. They winced at that, but they couldn't bear to listen to this. They removed the earpiece; now, they had only their gun and their wits.

'Do you really think you can beat me?' the voice asked over the PA. 'It took me less than a minute to jump on your frequency. It took me longer to patch into the speaker system here. And I'm watching all of you too. So to the guy who's all on his own, I say to you... she's behind you.'

Three whirled and fired off a shot, but hit only the shifting shadows. They lowered their gun, trying to keep the tremor from their hands.

An arrow whizzed past their head from the left; they turned and fired another burst, but she was already gone, disappeared into the darkness again.

The growl of the dog sounded throughout the mall.

Where are you? Three screamed, raising their gun and aiming frantically. An arrow shot straight through it; Three looked up to see her, standing by the balcony, a rope in her hands. She leapt over the side.

And they noticed the arrow, rope tied around it, stuck in their rifle, slung over their head and shoulder. They jerked forward and fell hard, dragged along several feet before they collided with a display table solid enough to halt their path momentarily. They held on for dear life, feeling the strain as the gun strap dug into their chest. They held their breath, unable to breathe in once they'd breathed out, until suddenly the pressure eased and they relaxed. They gasped for air, wincing at the pain in their chest as they did so. At least now they had a moment; they took stock of their position, putting their earpiece back in.

Hello? Hello? Anyone there?

One and Two here. We're after the guy on the PA. One's blind.

For reals?

It's temporary, I hope. I took out his mic, he's in shock. I think he's deaf too.

Is... is that all temporary too?

…

No answer. Three felt their throat tighten. They got to their feet and drew their pistol, heading out of the store and peering down into the darkness. Was that someone down there?

I'm bringing some light into this place, Three said, aiming high. They fired, shattering the glass above where there was no sand burying the sun. Light suddenly flooded sections of the mall; their aim was poor and they were firing wildly. The poured a clip into the windows on the ceiling, letting the light air out the place. The shards sparkled in the sun and fell like rain, and through the dust motes which flew past, now illuminated in their vision, Three saw her in the shadow of the clothing shop again.

I've got the girl, they said. Heading to her now.

The guy isn't in the security booth, Two said. It looks like... I see him! I'm coming your way, we'll meet on the ground floor!

Good, Three said. I'll have the girl by then.

Two left One in the security room. They were still delirious and Two did not know what to do. You'll be safe here, they said. One nodded; seems like their hearing was coming back.

Down the stairs and back to the ground floor. Light was spilling in now, flooding the floors as it hadn't done for many months. It almost felt like everything was back to normal, Three thought. They kept their gun trained on the place they had seen the girl, taking cover behind benches and bins as they went. She was still in dark shadow, underneath the balcony in a corner where they hadn't been able to shoot out the glass. They ran forward.

Freeze! They buzzed. She did not move; they advanced.

'Alright,' she said. 'You got me, I'll come quietly.'

Turn around, they said, scant few feet away. Her bow was slung on her back, how much trouble could she be? They stepped forward and reached out.

The kick came from behind and sent them sprawling. Her clothes were on a mannequin; she wore its fabulous gown as she kicked their gun out of reach and brought an arrow down through their hamstring. They cried in pain.

What is it? Two asked breathlessly.

She tricked me! Three cried. Get out of here, they're dangerous! You can escape-

'No,' the voice said. 'No one escapes.'

A moment of silence, and then the buzzing began. It roared from every store and kicked up dust as it reverberated around the walls. Two stared all around as they hovered out of store doorways and smashed windows like an alien invasion.

The drones moved as one, like a flock of starlings, all of them staring at Two.

Two raised their gun.

Several fell in the first volley, but the clip was only sustained for a few seconds and they scattered quickly, flying up high before diving down again as Two reloaded on the run. They buzzed over Two's head and the scavenger dived aside as one headed straight for them, rolling down the sand dune which brought them to the shadows of the ground floor. All around them, the drones buzzed. There were still more than a dozen of them left, hovering neutrally at the moment.

Tony stark appeared, walking out of a TV store on the ground floor. He turned to Kate first.

'What did I say?' he reprimanded. 'I told you, bring 'em to the ground floor, outside the hi-fi shop. I had this cool entrance planned and everything! What, you just don't listen now?'

'Not to you!' Kate snapped. 'You're crazy! Besides, my way worked much better! I got to wear this cool dress!'

'Next time listen to me,' Tony said. 'Now they're all separated and I'm gonna have to teach this guy a lesson. You!' he pointed to Two. 'Take off your mask, remove your radio and your earpiece. Otherwise all of these guys are crashing into you.'

Two did as they were told. They removed the headgear, revealing short, cropped black hair and a beautiful face.

'You tried to take my stuff,' Tony said. 'I don't like that.'

'So?' Two asked, raising the gun. 'You're not exactly in a good position right now.'

'This is your warning,' Tony said. 'I see you three again, you don't get to live.'

'I thought you were one of the good guys,' she retorted. Tony eyes stared at the floor.

'There's no good guys anymore,' he muttered. He turned and motioned to Kate. She whistled for Lucky, and the three of them headed for the stairs.

Two raised her rifle.

Tony pressed a button, and the drones rocketed upwards. She didn't get a shot off before they crushed each other against the windows at the top, shunting into the cracked panes.

The first she knew about it was the cogs and tiny propellers which rained down on her head. Then, a ton of sand rained down on Two, weighing down her feet before she could move. She had enough time to thrust a hand out before the sand covered her entirely.

'That wasn't nice,' Kate said when they were outside. Tony was packing crates of dog food into the van.

'I know,' he said. 'They didn't even have a pizza place there. What kind of a crappy mall-'

'I meant what you did to them,' Kate pushed. She stared at him, partly in anger and partly in horror.

'What, are you nice to me to make up for being so ruthless with others? Is that it? Or were you planning on burying them anyway?'

'I had a few things set up,' Tony said. 'They worked well enough, even without your help, and she would've killed us otherwise.'

'And you couldn't just help them out?' Kate asked. 'You've got enough stuff.'

'I have enough water for four days,' Tony said. 'Well, had. With you and your dog, that's just about gone – I've got maybe enough for tonight and then we'll be thirsty as all hell tomorrow. I picked up what I could in there, but a lot of it was spilled and now there's people in there who, when they can get up again, are gonna be pretty mad with us. So we've got maybe another day. And we're eating beans and dog food. Because I only brought beans. And you know what everyone hates in the end times, kid? Is more beans, because that's all they've got too!'

'So come back to my camp!' Kate snapped. Tony started, and she calmed down.

'It's a half-day from here, if we go through the night we can get there before morning. I've got some water saved up – again, not much, but some – we can stock up before we go foraging again. How does that sound?' Tony stared at her and pouted, his eyes betraying his anger.

'Fine!' he sighed. 'Let's go to your place. Maybe we can still get a few days' worth of scavenging out of it before I carry on! And I'll make sure to leave you behind this time, I don't need the extra weight.'

'Sounds good to me,' Kate said primly, opening a can of dog food.

 


	4. Day 3: Flickers

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tony freaks Kate out and then tries to make a computer. Things get weird...

The ride through the night was terrifying; Kate gripped the sides of the seat for dear life, grimacing as she stared at a world which passed by in a blur of figure-eight visibility, the truck slipping and skating on the sand.

'Lousy sandbag,' Tony muttered. 'Frickin' piece o' junk, asspile sandbag...' He muttered like that all night, yanking the steering wheel from side to side sometimes when they struck a rock and almost careened into a roll; then he'd stop muttering and just yell profanities at the thing for a while. Then, when his panic had subsided, he would drive on. It kept up like this until dawn, when the sun rose and illuminated the first of the signs which gave Kate some comfort.

It was a big red KEEP OUT sign. She'd made it herself. Tony stared at it incredulously.

'This is your place?' he asked. 'Am I allowed in?' Kate stuck her tongue out at him and the van rolled in.

The entrance to Kate's encampment was treacherous; she spent the next hour or so pointing out the areas Tony _shouldn't_ drive through, because there were traps there where the sand would fall away into a pit, or at the edges where she'd set up weight-sensitive landslides, and she showed him where to manoeuvre around the scattered laser sights which, when broken, would trigger detonations of the tallest building tops around them.

'How did you set all this up?' Tony gasped, partly in fear and partly in wonder. Kate shrugged.

'You come by the stuff as you scavenge, I guess,' she said. 'I just made it work, is all. Oh, make a left here!'

Tony swung the van to the left and it skidded a little on the sand before gripping and heading down a small side street. The place Kate had colonised was in the middle of several building tops which still expanded four or five floors above the sand. At one point it might have been a park, a communal area between the buildings where people could congregate and chat; now, though, it looked more like an apocalyptic Occupy movement, a series of tents and wind-breakers strung together in a patchwork of quality and colour. Tony stopped the van and got out to look around, Kate following on with Lucky.

'Careful,' she said. 'There are some traps around here too. I forget where, though,' she added, striking a thoughtful pose.

'Wow,' Tony said. 'You're more like the other Hawkeye than I thought.'

'Hey!'

'What? It's true.' Kate simply crossed her arms and ignored him as he poked about her camp. He stared around at the mishmash of technology and savagery; homemade spears were stuck in the sand next to the microwave, there was a table covered in feathers and thin plastic and craft knives, and next to that was a television which seemed to be permanently on. Tony stared at the test pattern for a while before turning to the rest of the camp.

'This is it?' he asked. 'Where's the rest of it?'

'There is no rest of it,' Kate said. 'This is my camp. The fridge works, that's something!'

'Barely,' Tony retorted. 'What, you live on your own out here?'

'It's alright!' Kate said, suddenly defensive. 'I've got Lucky and microwave pizzas and sometimes the test pattern flickers and I can pretend I'm watching an actual show and...' she trailed off and stared at the ground, clenching and unclenching her fists.

'I bet it's nothing compared to Avengers Tower, huh?' she snapped, and Tony saw the tears pricking her eyes. 'I bet you were real cosy up there, it was warm and you had a nice bed, and you had all your computers to talk to! I bet you were fine, you were sheltered and happy as usual and-'

'I'm not talking about that right now,' Tony said, raising his voice to speak over her. But there was a strain to it, he felt it grip his throat at the words. He took several deep breaths and sat down.

'Look,' he continued, 'we've both had to adapt to different situations since the... the event. Some of us,' he said, gesturing to her, 'have adapted better than... others.'

'What's your point, Stark?' Kate asked, sniffing. She still felt the sting of spending hours in that truck with him beside her, muttering incessantly. She didn't notice him staring madly at the TV.

'My point is test screens shouldn't flicker,' he said quietly. Kate turned to him, fuming.

'If you're gonna talk to yourself,' she said, 'you can do it in the...' she stopped short. He was just staring, sitting close enough to the television to see the individual colours making up each part of the screen.

'Test screens,' he said. 'In this day and age, they shouldn't flicker. If they're flickering, it means someone is trying to get through. They're failing, but only because we're not wired in to properly receive whatever they're sending.'

'What are you talking about, Stark?' Kate walked over to his side and stared at the screen. 'Honestly, it's just an old TV, that's probably it.'

'Do these flickers happen regularly?' Tony asked her. 'Do they happen at certain times or at regular intervals? They could be signals being broadcast, only we don't have the right equipment to pick them up!' He stood suddenly, staring about himself wildly.

'We have to get a computer,' he said suddenly.

-

The day was still young, but Tony felt the exhaustion in his bones. It took them an hour to search out the first building from top to bottom, and they found enough parts to maybe make a computer.

'If I had all my tools,' Tony said, 'which I don't; I only brought what I needed to repair the van.'

'So let's go back to Avengers Tower,' Kate said. 'There are computers there, right?'

'We can't,' Tony said in hushed tones. 'We can't go back there, Kate. _I_ can't go back there; I just can't, understand.'

'Then where?' Kate asked. 'We need a computer, Stark; you're a computer guy. Figure something out or I'm taking the van and Lucky and taking my chance with your old pad.'

'I don't think you understand what you're asking,' Tony said. He said it so calmly Kate thought he was overreacting for a moment, but the tremor in his voice caught her. She listened.

'I was never alone there,' he said. 'I've never been alone in Avengers Tower, not even after the weapon hit and everyone left, not even then. There were always their ghosts there, whispers in the rooms and voices in the corridor. I shut myself off from so much of the tower because I couldn't stop hearing them; they've never left, Kate, their voices are still there.'

'What do the voices say?' Kate asked. Tony stared at the ground, refusing to look at her.

'It's all your fault.'

-

It took an hour for Tony to stir, but when he did it was important.

'There!' he announced. Kate started, shaken from her reverie by his movement. She petted Lucky's head, resting on her lap, and turned to Stark.

'There what?' he asked, rubbing her eyes. Had she been asleep? She always hated sleeping during the day...

'It flickered!' Tony said. 'Didn't you see it? I wonder if equipment _is_ the problem...'

'What do you mean?' Kate asked, reaching for a tin of beans. She grimaced as she realised Stark was right; everybody had frickin' beans, and nothing else. She jabbed at the tin with her ancient tin opener, growing ever more frustrated.

'I mean,' Tony explained, 'we've got a half-decent television here; I could probably incorporate those computer parts and we'd have a working computer; it'd be crappy, and controlled by a TV remote, but it'd work for receiving whatever they're sending.'

'I don't think that's how TV's work,' Kate said, standing. 'Or science, or technology in general. I'm pretty sure you've actually gone crazy this time, Stark.'

Tony shooed her away and got to work on cracking open the back cover. Kate went to the van and opened it up, searching in the back for a can opener. One of those mechanical, hand-operated ones, not a crappy old one like she had.

She returned fifteen minutes later to find Tony doing... _something_. She stared at his handiwork as he tweaked parts of the computer circuitry with two twigs, tongue stuck out of the side of his mouth in concentration.

'Do... do you want me to get your tools outta the back?' Kate asked hesitantly. Tony turned to face her and grinned.

'Yeah,' he said. 'Yeah, that's a good idea.' With that, he turned back to the cannibalised television and tweaked it some more.

The thump of the toolbox next to him startled him and he jumped, staring in shock at the red toolbox by his side.

'What's this?' he asked.

'Your toolbox,' Kate said. 'If you're gonna break my TV, at least do it with proper instruments; I don't wanna have to say some jerk with a twig broke it.'

'Fine,' Tony said. He opened up the toolbox and rummaged around. Pulling out a small screwdriver, he set to work.

Day wore on into dusk. Tony did not have anything to eat, and he barely drank from Kate's stock of water (enough for two weeks for her and Lucky; with Tony that went down, to maybe twelve days), absorbed as he was in the task of turning her television into a computer. But he was quick to call out every flicker and image change, and Kate was surprised, after eleven hours of work, to find that the flickers were actually lasting longer. And she could see something in the images. A face she thought she recognised.

The light faded and Tony faded too; suddenly he was hungry and thirsty and sullen and grumpy again. He drank a bottle of water straight up, followed by a tin of beans and a couple of spoonfuls of dog food before he realised and spent five minutes retching in the sand. He gave the rest of the tin to Lucky.

'Alright,' he said. 'I'm getting somewhere. I think tomorrow we can find out what this is all about.'

'We're gonna have somewhere else to go tomorrow?' Kate asked. Tony nodded.

'And you said we should go back to the tower!' he scoffed. 'We'd still be on the road by now!'

'Okay!' kate sighed. 'It was a pretty good idea. Have any idea who the person on the television is?'

Tony watched, concentrating, as the image flickered again. He'd got it to five seconds of flickery, soundless footage, grainy and wobbly so it was hard to see. But there was a person there, and they were broadcasting over broadband. Tony stared at the flicker, trying to discern features or anything he could recognise. He shook his head as it disappeared again.

'I don't know,' he admitted, rubbing his eyes. 'But I think I should know them. We'll find out tomorrow.'

He lay down on the sand, a blanket over him and a bedroll beneath him, staring at the television.

As his eyes closed, he swore the logo in the centre of the test screen blurred and twisted into an image of Avengers Tower...

 


	5. Day 4-A: Transmission

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tony and Kate finally fix up that old television! Now they just have to find out who's behind Times Square Radio and why they want Tony Stark captured so badly. That is, if they can get away from the biker gang first...

He hated green.

 

Green was the worst colour. He couldn't stand it. And yet here it was. Green. Everywhere. This was the place he'd chosen to stop, to settle down and get to work. And it was _green_.

He wondered if that was a conscious decision on his part. Maybe he didn't really hate green, maybe he loved it really, maybe maybe maybe...

He shivered and took off his glasses to rub his eyes. How long had he been awake now? No, this wasn't healthy, he knew what would happen if he didn't get some sleep. He'd break everything again, mess it all up.

He sighed and got to his feet.

Out there the streets were deserted. Nobody came near here now, they all thought it was haunted. A demonic spirit lived in the towers around here, they said; it came at you like a shadow and struck like steel. Nobody had ever seen it and lived.

Well, he certainly wasn't going to dissuade them of their views, especially not if it kept them away. He stumbled over to his tiny, dirty bed – still not the worst place he'd ever slept – and collapsed on it. His eyes closed, and he was gone.

And moments later, his eyes reopened.

These were not the same eyes. They were wild and animal eyes, the eyes of a predator.

That night, the demon was on patrol.

-

One, Two and Three were thirsty. They had extricated themselves from the sand traps and the tripwires Tony had left around the mall, and they were heading away from the tyre tracks which presumably would lead them back to their original quarry.

A high-pitched buzz echoed around the buildings and distracted them from their task. Rifles! Two motioned as she raised her own gun. They closed against each other and aimed nervously at any open road and alleyway around them, the early morning half-light making the shadows leap out at them in monstrous forms.

The first figure appeared over a dune on the main road. It was a petrol-engined dirt bike, leaping animatedly through the air before landing with a thump and skidding to a halt wildly, just in from of Two. She took off her helmet and lowered the rifle.

'You guys?' she asked, feeling her throat catch – ugh, she wished she'd picked up some water in the mall! 'What are you doing here?' The biker did not remove his helmet, but instead turned and motioned to some distant rooftops. The buzz continued, further off but approaching quickly. Turning back to Two, he gestured with his arms, a primitive sign language.

'Going after him, eh? I guess you struck out at Avengers Tower?' A nod. 'Well,' Two sighed, 'don't blame me if he kills you – the dude knows how to prepare.'

More sign language for you, arrogantly gestured. At the end, the biker had his hands proudly on his hips.

'Yeah, yeah, good point,' Two said. 'We need water; you got any spare?'

The biker chucked one bottle from his saddle bag and turned. The others in his gang had formed up on the ridge of the dune and were staring down. Two snorted – drama queens! But she thanked them for the water and waved them on their way. They gunned the throttles and sprinted down the dune, heading through the buildings alongside the tyre tracks. Two watched them go, then cracked open the bottle. She felt the feverish lust for more even as the first drops touched her lips, but she held back. Passing it to One first, and then to Three, they each took a drink. The bottle was finished quickly and discarded in the sand.

'That's better,' she said, licking her lips. She turned to One. 'Hey, can you hear me yet?' One shook his head. Still fuzzy, he buzzed.

'Alright,' Two said. 'We're gonna get more water. There's not many places left to find it, so we're gonna have to go for the last place anyone wants to go.'

Three groaned and swore and Two glowered at them.

'That's right, a-hole,' Two said. 'And because of that, you're taking point. We're going to Times Square.'

-

'There! Right there!'

Tony pointed at the screen and gestured absently for Kate to come over and see. There it was, not Avengers tower at all but a radio tower in the middle of the test card, lines of cartoonish lightning buzzing around the satellite dish on top. And then the whole thing turned green and there was a voice on the other end that Tony vaguely recognised.

'Welcome to Times Square Radio, listeners, and today we've got a very special broadcast for you! The hunt for Tony Stark continues, as the news arrived earlier this morning that he was spotted heading East with an accomplice and her dog! The bounty is set at sixty litres of water for the person who catches him and brings him here, to Times Square!'

'That's not good,' Kate piped up through a mouthful of cold beans. 'What are you gonna do?'

'Sixty litres is a lot of water,' Tony mused. 'That's a month's supply, at least.' He stood up and headed to the van.

'No, no, no!' he muttered, pulling tools and cans out of the back. 'This is never gonna work! We need something faster, more manoeuvrable! Kate, have you got a... a bike or something?' Kate shook her head, but paused her breakfast as her ears caught something. Lucky growled and she ran to pick up her bow.

'We might be able to get one soon,' she said. 'Can you shoot?'

'Not well,' Tony said, pulling on his repulsor gloves.

'Then get in a corner,' Kate ordered. 'I'll take out as many as I can, you trip up the rest!'

Tony nodded as Kate and Lucky sprinted off in opposite directions, a practised drill. Now he, too, heard the high-pitched drone of the dirt bikes heading their way, he ran to the corner of a building which cast its shadow over the campsite and waited.

-

Times Square somehow still held the vibe of a bustling, big-city gathering place, although now long deserted. Several screens still flickered, dead pixels mixing in with the static of cut video feeds. One, Two and Three moved cautiously between the buildings, rifles raised to the tops of the towers.

'What do we see?' Two asked. 'Movement?'

'None yet,' Three replied. 'Looks like we're in the clear.'

'One?'

'My hearing's getting better,' One replied. 'Think Doc'll get us patched up? I hear tell he's around here somewhere nowadays.'

'You hear things about Doc all the time,' Two sighed. 'None of them have turned out to be true.'

'Yet,' One added. 'They've not been true _yet_. Hey, check this out.'

Two and Three fell in behind One as they moved towards the outer edge of the square. One pointed up at the top of the buildings.

'Scrap metal,' he noted. 'Like a bridge? Doesn't look high enough or wide enough to be a bridge, though.'

'Sniper tower?' Two asked, raising her rifle and looking at it through her scope. She shook her head. 'No, that's just a wall of steel. But why so high up?'

'Hey, can we get a move on?' Three interrupted their thoughts. 'I could really use a drink right about now!'

'Damn it, Three!' Two hissed, jabbing him in the ribs with the butt of her rifle. 'Alright, let's go. But keep an eye out – I don't want to be here at night, and the sun's already going down.'

They continued on their path, fanning out over the open space. Times Square had escaped the worst of it, but so much was still covered in sand and it built up in piles the height of two or three people in the corners. Two kept away from those corners, eyeing them with worry. She shook her head and raised her rifle – _Tony Stark isn't here, nothing bad is gonna happen to you, you're just getting some water_ – when Three called out again.

'Hey! I found some!'

They converged on his position. It was sitting out almost in the open, cool and inviting; someone had even gone to the trouble of getting the fridge working so they were nice and cold. Two groaned.

'Alright,' she said. 'Rifles up, anything comes at us you guys turn it back. Shoot to kill, we get out of here fast as soon as I pick these up. Agreed?'

The other two nodded and spread out, finding cover nearby and raising their guns. Two took a duffel bag from her own pack and opened it. She reached around with one arm and quickly scooped the bottles into the bag, zipping it up. In the same instant, she was already turning and drawing her pistol.

Silence.

Nothing came at them. Two stared around in wonder.

'Alright then,' she said. 'Maybe this was passed over. Maybe someone left it here as tribute, or for some return journey that they never made it back to. Whatever the case, let's go – this place gives me the creeps.'

And as she started walking, that was when the rumbling started. One shouted and pointed as, with a thunderous creaking and crashing, the big steel walls they'd seen so high up on the buildings crashed down with a thrum of chain links suddenly going taut.

Every working screen suddenly flickered on, bathing the place in a luminous green light. Two's gun was raised and pointing all about her as the green glow was suffused with streaks of blue laser lights which pinpointed their locations in the square with ease.

'LEAVING SO SOON?' a gravelly voice boomed from hidden speakers. 'BUT WE'RE JUST ABOUT TO GET STARTED.'

'What's going on?' One cried, staring all around as the music started, a pounding dubstep beat which seemed to shake the ground beneath them.

'DON'T YOU KNOW?' the voice continued. 'THIS PLACE IS HAUNTED!'

'Oh no,' Two gasped.

A demonic spirit lived in the towers around here, they said; it came at you like a shadow and struck like steel. Nobody had ever seen it and lived.

Somewhere close by, on one of the rooftops, a roar broke through the pounding music.

'Run!' Three yelled, and got to their feet, but the three of them could already hear the pounding of enormous feet above and they all knew: they would be joining the ranks of scavengers who had come here for supplies, desperate, a wound up under the claw of the Demon of Times Square.

The music pounded in time with the footsteps.

There was a scream.

And then everything went dead.

 


	6. Day 4-B: Pitfall

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tony has second thoughts about this whole "being a hero" thing. Meanwhile, Kate is facing off against her toughest opponent yet - a rifleman who's every bit as good a shot as she is.

Every culture has their legends, heroic outlaws who did great deeds and laughed in the face of danger; people who accomplished incredible feats, or fought the law and won, or faced insurmountable odds and died a heroic death, unbending against the waves.

Tony had heard such stories before, but he liked to believe he was not of their ilk. He would have no heroic last stand – he would, in fact, emphatically _avoid_ any situation which could lead to a heroic last stand, and he would go out of his way to make sure he need never see a heroic last stand, much less witness those guns pointing at him.

So to be sitting in a corner, staring at the back of his hand and knowing that the right movement would shoot a blast of kinetic energy at whoever was on the other side of it, and to be hearing the whirring of motorcycle engines growing ever closer and not having any idea how far away they were, nor how many there were? Well, that went against everything Tony felt he was living for.

The buzzing engines grew ever louder, building to a crescendo in Tony's head. Any moment now that buzzing would be all around him, an army of dirt bikes and savage riders, and he would be cornered. And Kate had run off somewhere, and Lucky had gone with her. So the question was: did he trust her enough to sit in this corner and hope her plan all worked out?

He turned to the TV again, still flickering in its corner. Had someone turned it to face him? The screen flickered in his direction and he blinked away the images. No, he thought, that television was still facing away from him. He was seeing things. Seeing things, now! At this moment, when he needed a clear head. He shook himself and stood. The buzzing was getting roaringly loud now, he couldn't stand the way it made his fingers itch, it set his teeth on edge.

'The Hell with this,' he muttered. He walked out of his corner and brought up his glove, stepping out into the road.

-

The rooftops offered little cover.

Kate knew this, she'd lived here long enough. But right now they offered more cover than the lower ground, where the bikers would be racing through the canyons of rubble and debris covered by sand.

When Kate had discovered this place, this maze of concrete and metal, The sand had been relatively light. Her traps for the first few days had been obvious, easy to spot; it was only after the next big sandstorm, when she had hunkered down in her tent with Lucky and held on tightly to him, waiting for the harsh winds to stop buffeting her only shelter, that they had been covered and were now invisible.

She watched with satisfaction as the first wave of bikers rode in a wide spread through the canyon. Two of them caught the landmines she'd planted under the sand, quick and easy traps to reset. Their bikes rocketed out from under them and the sand cascaded over their partners as they landed flat on the ground, unmoving. She readied her bow and pulled back the string, an arrow in place.

She was already moving by the time it left the bow, heading to the next lookout point. She didn't need to look to see that a third biker was down.

-

The fourth biker didn't go any further. When they realised they were the only one left, they turned tail and headed back to the entrance of the maze, being careful to follow their own tracks back. Their leader awaited them, standing proud amongst his troops. He was outfitted in urban camouflage, a rifle slung on his back. He signed to the scout.

_Anything?_

_Traps_ , the scout signed back. _Lots of them._

 _Leave it to me_ , the leader said. He swung his leg over his bike and revved the engine, and was gone before the others could react.

The bike climbed the dunes easily, and his eyes sought out the perfect track. In minutes he was at a broken window, his way to the top of the building unimpeded. Well, almost; he stared up at the debris inside the apartment building. The storms and chaos had taken their toll on this building, it seemed entire floors were missing. Once he got to the top, he would be on unstable ground at best. He sighed and rolled his shoulders, working out the kinks and knots such a long ride here had produced. Then, he bent his legs and leapt.

His fingers easily caught an outcrop of twisted metal and he pulled himself up, onto the next floor. Beneath his helmet, he grinned.

Climbing was like any other puzzle. You just had to see the solution.

He pushed his way deeper into the building and out into the hallway. The stairs on this floor were unharmed, tough concrete slabs stuck together. He climbed them two floors.

How many floors left? Two? Three? He wasn't entirely sure, but he was going to find out.

There was an overhanging curtain rod several feet up, still stuck into the wall above a broken window. The whole room here slanted and twisted down, almost collapsed, and almost the entire floor was missing. He tensed himself, ready to make the jump again. And he leapt.

One hand flailed uselessly in the air, grabbing at nothing. The other latched onto the rail and jerked his entire body so that he spun and swung out into the open air.

Above him, the curtain rod dislodged slightly.

Now his arm ached, and in fact it felt almost as though it would detach from his body and let him fall to the floor, so many bone-aching stories below. Groaning with the effort, he tensed his arm and pulled himself up so that he could grab onto the rail with his other hand.

The thing about this rail was, the years had not been kind to it. Sand had scoured the surface of varnish and rust had set in – for the leader, even with his keen eyes, this was not readily apparent. Or perhaps he was just not looking for it. Whatever the case, when it snapped in half and slipped a good foot and a half until it jammed against one of the fittings again, he was caught very much by surprise.

Now both his arms ached from the effort of holding himself up. _And_ he was out in the open. He stared out over the vista of rooftops which spread out before him, noting with some worry that the girl was looking in his direction.

 _Oh, Crap_.

He blinked and felt something slide past his hand as he brought it down to flail at his face. The arrow pinged off and embedded itself in the wall. As quickly as he could, he brought his hand up again and shimmied along the pole until he was mostly behind the crumbling wall.

When he felt his feet touch the solid wood floor, or what was left of it, he breathed a sigh of relief. He stood on that wooden ledge and leaned against the broken door and breathed a sigh of relief, letting the adrenaline thump through his chest before it dissipated and he was focused once more. He drew his rifle and headed into the next room; there was no way out in here, at least.

-

Kate blinked, her mouth dropping open in shock. She stared for a moment at the place where he'd been before he shifted himself behind the wall of the apartment complex.

_I missed?_

This was the farthest out she went, usually. It was the final lookout point before she was lost to the maze of buildings. And that apartment complex was the only weakness; in all the time she'd been here she hadn't found a way to reinforce it. It was unprotected, but it was also far enough out that she'd always assumed she would have no trouble from it. Except now there was this guy!

She nocked another arrow. The bikers were holding back; she hadn't seen one since the scout turned back (she followed his progress from the rooftops, just in case there was something she'd missed – it looked like he'd just got lucky). And now this one had ridden up the dunes to the back of this building and started climbing up inside it! He was brave, that was for sure. Either that or stupid. She raised her bow, trying to get a lock on where he could be...

A rifle bullet shattered the arrow, jarring her hand and causing her to loose the string so that it slapped against her palm. She winced and glowered at the building. He must've found a bolt hole somewhere!

In an instant she was on the move. Another bullet cracked against the stone where she'd been crouched; he was no longer interested in deterring her, it seemed.

Now, this was about life and death.

She was on top of another apartment complex, this one just as ruined as the other. She leapt in through an opening in the roof and ducked down into her own hide. The firing line was small, barely a big enough gap for the arrow to pass through, the slightest sliver of a hole in the wall. Her sightline was through the window beside it; she steeled herself and risked a glance out of the window.

Nothing. She couldn't see him, he couldn't see her. She sighed, partly with relief and partly out of frustration.

Twenty-seven arrows left. She'd have to make every shot count.

The roar of engines began. She heard the scavengers approaching and nocked another arrow.

'Alright,' she said, turning to Lucky. 'Let's turn this place into a pit.'

-

The rifleman made it to the top of the building. His bolt-hole had been a small gap in the crumbling masonry the next room over, a space just big enough for him to sit his rifle and, if he leaned very awkwardly, see out of the scope at the rooftop nearby. He'd got the first shot just right – enough to distract the girl, he couldn't have her anywhere nearby right now.

He climbed up to the roof and signalled to his men. The sign was easily distinguished by the scout.

 _Move in_ , he relayed to the bikers. _We're here for Tony Stark only. Ignore everyone else_.

The bikers nodded their understanding and revved their engines. The leader watched them as they entered the canyon, signalling all the time to the lead biker. A companion on the back of the bike nodded and relayed the orders.

He could see every trap, every pit, every mine she'd laid out. He saw the path as plain as day.

This maze was just another puzzle. One he had already solved.

Except...

The first explosion didn't register. It barely huffed out a cloud of dust, it was discrete. It was only when he realised the building to his right was _moving_ that he caught the thread of something off, trailing down the line.

_Sir? You've stopped signing. Is everything okay?_

He watched the building, twisting inexorably in his direction.

 _Get to cover_ , he signed. He was already running.

And he leapt.

The toppling building was under his feet at the exact right moment. He stumbled but was upright again and pushing onwards, up the ever-increasing incline as it dropped towards his once-vantage point.

It collided, smashed like a sledgehammer. Where there had been two ruined apartment buildings, there was now dust and ash and rubble.

And somewhere in there, cursing and fuming and freaking out, was the leader of the bikers.

The scouts were calling for him, wondering where he'd gone, but at least one of them was relaying orders – ordering them back, or forwards or into one of the obviously-trapped alleys, just _somewhere_ where they weren't in the way of the toppling buildings which, the leader now realised, were all coming down at once.

She was turning this place to rubble, just to slow them down. She knew it wouldn't kill them, they were too small for that. You try to crush an ant but it escapes in the gaps of the tread of your shoe. He smiled, beneath the helmet, and spoke.

'Get clear,' he ordered. 'Find cover. Take Stark – I'll deal with the girl.'

Slinging the rifle over his shoulder, he began the laborious task of finding his way out of the cavernous ruins of the apartment buildings.

 


	7. Day 4-C: Pebble

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Everything collapses! Join in the countdown as Kate Bishop takes out bikers in her pitfall trap, and Tony Stark goes on a rampage through collapsed apartments. Twenty-seven arrows, countless bikers, one mad genius. How can the bikers ever survive?

 

Kate hunkered down behind a slab of concrete. This wasn't exactly what she'd had planned, but their leader was a lot smarter than she gave him credit for. She took a moment to lean out over the top and check the landscape.

A burst of gunfire rattled her way and she ducked down again. Okay, so she hadn't got nearly as many as she'd wanted; but they were still scattered, many of them trapped beneath rubble or forced to drive into dead ends or traps. That was the only other problem with this plan: so many of her traps were now ineffective! They'd either be activated by crashing rubble, or else entirely dislodged. Kate began to wonder if she'd given away too many of her advantages too early. She sighed as she twisted, an arrow in place, and fired at the biker who'd shot at her cover. He went down with a gurgling cry as the leather around his neck stained red.

Twenty-six arrows left. She gritted her teeth and leapt over the cover, another arrow at the ready. The bikers weren't interested in her, she realised: they were only after Stark. But if that was the case, now they'd be forced to go through her.

The rubble of collapsed buildings formed an arena of sorts, one it was almost impossible to drive through. Even the bikers would struggle; the ground was a hazard zone of loose scree, pit traps and scattered chunks of rubble which formed ramps of a sort, although it was impossible to get any speed up on the surface. All around it was ringed with partially or wholly-collapsed buildings, whose furniture and fittings spilled out and added another layer of complexity in obstacles. Televisions hung from trailing wires, as did lamps and old, broken computer monitors. Whatever was near a window or a hole in the wall now hung down, perhaps far longer than it had any right to thanks to Kate's foresight and paranoia. Cables had been replaced by long strands of heavy duty rope, any spare scraps of sheeting or tarpaulin had been called in and placed in seemingly strange places about living rooms or kitchens or bathrooms, and now those rooms were in the open and those scraps became spiders webs, edged with razor blades or stuck with nails for extra bite.

And all around were the bikers. And Kate had been living in terrain like this, getting to know every feature and every wall of these apartments for goodness knows how long. This trap had been planned with the eye of someone who never misses a shot, each stone perfectly placed to lend her an edge and take away any advantage from the enemy.

Twenty-five. Twenty-four. Two more bikers fell with arrows in their necks. Twenty-three; a third biker took on in the back, severing his spine before she yanked it out and dug it deep into the base of his skull. There was no mercy anymore – only savagery.

Twenty-two. Kate hid behind a spire of rock and stabbed the biker who tried to sprint past it to cover. She pulled it back into her bow and fired, pinning another to his bike as it tumbled into a pit.

Twenty-one. Twenty. Nineteen. Three in quick succession as more bikers piled in, jumping the arena wall.

Eighteen. Seventeen. Two tried to flank her and found her to be quicker than they expected. She wiped the sweat from her brow and looked for the next target.

Sixteen arrows left. Had that been the leader? No! Just some biker with a cool coat.

She heard a yelp and turned.

Fifteen, fourteen. Thirteen. All to kill one man but then, he had just kicked Lucky.

-

The leader sat in the rubble and listened to the frantic cries, the pleas for a plan, for order. And he wondered.

Had this been a mistake? _We invaded her home_. But all they wanted was Stark. _At what cost? Is this worth it?_ Sixty bottles is a lot, even for this crew. _A crew that is fast dwindling!_ Well, there was not much that could be done about that. But perhaps there need not be...

The leader stood. He had scoped out the weak points. Perhaps in an earlier time, a better time, he would have tried something like this. But not as cool, no. Under his helmet, he grinned again.

He produced a grenade from his pocket. Pulling the pin, he lobbed it at the ceiling of the cathedral of rubble which entombed him.

 _Let's see how good a shot you are_ , he thought, disappearing into the darkness.

The grenade exploded.

-

Seeing things, now! At this moment, when he needed a clear head!

Tony Stark shook himself and stood. The buzzing was getting roaringly loud now, he couldn't stand the way it made his fingers itch, it set his teeth on edge.

'The Hell with this,' he muttered. He walked out of his corner and brought up his glove, stepping out into the road.

The front line of bikers revved their engines and took a burst of extra speed when they saw him. Tony could picture the grins under their savaged, war-paint helmets; he turned his nose up at the thought.

He raised his hand and aimed carefully for the closest biker.

Something rumbled. The ground seemed to tilt beneath him. Suddenly, everything felt sideways.

There was an almighty crash, and a cloud of dust enveloped Stark. When the world had finally stopped rumbling and roaring, he opened his eyes and shook the dust from his hair. Squinting through the clouds, he made his way forwards. The ground was a lot... _rockier_ than he remembered it. And he was sure he should be hearing the revving of engines right about now. Had something happened?

'Hey!' he called. 'Hey, is anyone there?'

Silence. He pressed forward hesitantly. Nobody seemed to be there. Arms out, waving in front of him cautiously, he edged onwards, into the dust clouds.

His hand contacted with something. It was rough, and cold, and cracked. _That's odd. There were people there._ He waited for the dust to clear a little, but it didn't, so he pushed himself closer to the thing.

It was a wall.

More specifically, it was a wall which had until that point been standing up straight. It was a wall which had been part of an apartment complex, and was now lying sideways in the middle of the road.

There was a blockade. It had not been his doing. Was it Kate? Was it – Heaven forbid! - was it the bikers? He stared at it for a moment, wondering what to do.

And then he could hear the revving again, faintly. It was emanating from somewhere behind the wall. And there was screaming too. Tony took a step back and aimed.

The wall crumbled easily under a blast from his glove. Now there was a hole big enough for Tony Stark to crawl through. He emerged in the decimated ruins of a once-beautiful apartment building. Where there had been stylish furnishings and lovely views, now there were sideways sofas and ruins of supposedly fine art hanging from the walls. Everything was dark, there was not a place the shadows did not touch. The dust encroached even in here, great clouds of it coating every surface now thrown to the winds and choking up the air inside.

For Tony, who was still sick of waiting, there was only one option.

He pressed on into the depths.

It was the bad luck of the leading bikers to be caught in the open when the building collapsed, or their bad planning; when the apartments came down they were unlucky enough to be crushed beneath the rubble. Arguably luckier, although barely so, were the bikers who found themselves fortunate only to have to endure crashing through wooden window frames and glass panes. There were at least a dozen still alive thanks to the circumstance of being under windows or doorways or open arches where the wall had rotted or fallen away or been blown apart, and though they were for the most part suffering some injury or another (because even if you are lucky enough not to be crushed to death by it, a window frame is still a chunk of wood hurtling at you from several stories up in this case), they were still alive, and still determined. They had their orders: Take Stark. And they were going to do that.

The frontmost biker, or the frontmost one who was still alive, activated his radio.

'Lead squad, converge on me,' he ordered. 'Find me, I'm in a living room near the front of the building, I think I can see a way out. Find me, we'll patch up and continue with the mission.'

A chorus of acknowledgements showed him just what he was working with. But that didn't matter too much, because a blinding light was in his face the next moment.

'Looking for me?' Tony asked. He didn't give the man a chance to answer.

The first biker arrived a few minutes later. He found his leader dead, propped up against the wall; his helmet had been taken off and discarded nearby. Whoever had killed him had wanted to make sure they finished the job.

'We have a problem,' he hissed. 'Our pointman is down; Grote, Jag, keep a perimeter and make sure everyone is ahead of you. Go back and find the survivors if you have to. Everyone else, continue in this direction – I'm going to scout the area and see if I can find Stark, he's the only one who could have done this.'

Grote and Jag were in the middle, but they fanned out and headed towards the back of the building, crawling through caves of rubble with their guns pointed ahead of them. They passed five more bikers, gathered in an open apartment which had half-crushed itself and was now supported by the weight of an entire car someone next door had decided was just essential for tying the room together as an art piece; it had barrelled through into this room, where it stuck.

'Carry on up to the front,' they ordered. 'We'll sort out injuries when we're all together.' Jag was, for his part, reluctant to continue without sorting injuries, because his arm was in a lot of pain and he worried he had broken it against one of the walls when the building had crashed down upon him. But he confirmed the order and kept his troubles to himself, carrying on towards the back of the building.

The last one was still on the floor, barely conscious. He was near the back of the building, and his helmet was cracked; Grote and Jag hauled him up and turned around.

'Heading back,' Jag said through gritted teeth. 'Looks like Angle's taken a nasty knock; he's a priority for medical attention. Any sign of Pebble? He wasn't behind us, I saw him aiming for a clear space.'

'I'm up ahead,' Pebble replied cautiously. 'Nearly on Fang's position; how's everyone else?'

'They're looking okay,' Grote said. 'Should be heading your way now, we're bringing up the rear.'

'Alright,' Pebble said, and was about to continue, but there was an unintelligible scream from Fang, the new pointman.

'Fang, what's up?' Grote cried. 'Fang, repeat! Do you have contact!'

'Yeah I have contact!' Fang shouted down the line. 'It's Tony Stark, he's in here with us! Forget what I said, scatter, scatter!'

'It won't matter.'

The reply was icy calm and stopped Jag and Grote in their tracks.

'I already know the location of every person in this building,' Tony Stark said calmly. 'Pebble, I like your name. I'm coming for you last.'

Jag turned to Grote. Though their helmets covered their faces, they knew each other well enough to know what the other was thinking.

As one, they hurried their pace towards the front of the building.

-

Fang had found Tony Stark, and had fired off a burst towards him. But Stark was fast; he had ducked back behind his corner and run off elsewhere. The way everything echoed in the building, combined with the muffling of the helmet, meant Fang had lost him soon enough after that encounter.

He reexamined the dead biker's helmet. The earpiece had been ripped out, nothing remained except exposed wiring. So Tony Stark could hear everything they said; then perhaps it was time to change up the game.

'Alright, new plan,' Fang said. 'I want everyone to spread out, but not too far; keep someone else in your sight at all times. Total radio silence, except for me! We relay messages throughout the group, eye-to-eye!'

'Yes, sir!' the group chorused. Fang nodded and raised his gun. They would find Tony Stark.

'Do you know something, Fang?'

Tony Stark's voice in his ear. He tried to tune it out, heading towards the place he had fired on him.

'There are twelve of you left,' Stark continued. 'That's twelve people who need to stay in contact with each other, without radios. And you haven't even solved the problem.'

'Ignore him,' Fang cautioned. 'Carry on with the plan.'

'See, all this silence is going to do is stop them communicating.' Fang moved around an old oak chest and aimed through a gap in the wall. There was someone there...

'All it's going to do,' Tony Stark said, 'is prevent them from realising when someone else dies.'

There was a light behind him. Fang turned and made to cry out, to warn them somehow, but Stark's glove was around his throat. He clenched, and a pulse cracked Fang's neck.

The biker crumpled. Tony picked up his gun and unloaded the ammo clip, slipping it into his waistband.

'Eleven of you left,' he said, continuing.

-

Grote tried to move as little as possible. Angle's breathing was shallow but there was no external wound; concussion? Maybe worse. He grimaced under the weight of his comrade and turned to Jag.

 _Anything_? He signed. Jag shook his head.

From his vantage point towards the back, Jag could see four others – not including Grote and Angle. Much of the building was still covered in walls and half-collapsed doorways, but this place was an open expanse. Most of the walls had collapsed, giving Jag a clear view for what would have been at least three floors of the apartment, now all of them were sideways it was more like a firing range. The four bikers ahead of him were scattered around this area, covering corridors and doorways which had remained despite the explosions.

Pebble was calling for Fang over and over again. Come in, Fang, come in. Come in, Fang, come in. What's your status? Fang, come in.

'Leave it, Pebble,' Grote sighed. 'Stark's got him, he was up front.'

'It was inevitable,' Jag growled. 'I'd say you were next, but Stark's so crazy right now he really _will_ leave you until last.'

'What happened to radio silence?' Stark asked, more jauntily this time. 'Hey, Jag, how's Angle doing? If you do the kind thing and stove his head in with a shovel that'd be ten of you to go.'

'I want those of you who have eyes on me to make sure you've got line of sight to at least one other person,' Jag said, ignoring Stark. 'Try to find as many people as possible, this is a big building and we're not many!'

It was a frightening place to be. Even for times like this, fighting inside a collapsed apartment was crazy. Tony Stark was crazy. This whole operation seemed crazy. And what was worse, their leader had gone silent too. They had no communication with him; they were adrift, against a shadow, outmatched.

Jag was considering calling a retreat; he could hear the sounds of fighting in the arena behind them. It couldn't be too far away, and an ambush from behind could be just what they needed down there. If they took out the archer, then that would leave just the dog. The dog and Tony Stark.

Gunfire echoed throughout the corridors, reaching Jag's ears. But no one was calling for help!

'Come in!' Jag yelled. 'All units, sound off! I'm hearing gunfire in the building, who's fighting.' There was silence for a long time, followed by another burst of gunfire.

'Ten,' Tony said. 'Ten of you left. Keep count, Pebble. You're gonna be number one.'

-

Pebble ran through the corridors. Fang's body was easy enough to find, but it was not something he wanted to find; the head was twisted at a strange angle, he was crumpled against a wall. Under his helmet, Pebble paled.

He stumbled his way through twisting corridor and clambered over sideways furniture, dodging through kitchen debris and squeezing himself through holes in the rubble. Pebble was lithe and running on adrenaline and desperation; less fear of death than it was fear of being the last one to die. He clambered up bathroom pipes to the corridor above, finding himself in the stairwell.

And there was Tony Stark.

He fired a burst from his gun, but Tony was already up to the next floor, balancing on creaky banisters until he was the floor above, and then jumping down into the apartment, crashing through the door into the flat beside Pebble.

More gunfire; Pebble hastened up the stairs and jumped down too, bracing for the landing beneath the door. Something Tony Stark hadn't been able to do; Pebble noted the bloody smear on the wall where Stark had caught a jagged rail of metal and cut himself, landing heavily.

'Nine,' Tony Stark said. 'That's four dead already, Pebble.'

Pebble leapt through a thin gap between two walls and found himself in a spacious living room. Collapsed on a sofa, the body of another biker. There was a burst of light to his right and a scream, and Pebble caught a glimpse of Stark through a half-collapsed wall before he disappeared into the shadows.

'Eight.'

Eight.

That left only Jag, Grote, Angle and the other four who were hunkered down together. Plus himself; Pebble steeled himself.

'Grote,' he said, 'he's coming your way. Make sure everyone is ready!'

Grote relayed orders, bringing everyone in closer together and setting up a strong defence, and Pebble was relieved to hear strong command once again.

'You're just making me angrier,' Stark said. 'This is not about you guys.'

There was a scream and gunfire, and then an explosion. Someone was crying.

'He took out a support!' Jag cried. 'He's gonna bring this whole place down on us!'

'He's back in the corridors!' Grote shouted. 'He'll come round again!'

'Hey, Pebble,' Tony said. 'Do you know what your pointman had in his pocket?'

 _Oh no_ , Pebble thought. He gasped, and headed towards the open area. Corridors twisted and turned against his purpose, leading him through a maze of dead ends until he pulled open a door and saw the seven of them.

'Grenade, scatter!'

He heard Grote's voice from half the room away. He was the only one who did not run, instead leaping on the explosive.

The explosion was wet and red. It sprayed over the apartment and over the bikers. Pebble's vision suddenly went red in one eye; he gave a yelp and removed his helmet, thrusting it as far from himself as he could. He sat panting for a moment, too terrified and grief-stricken to contemplate his thoughts.

'Seven,' Tony Stark breathed. He seemed almost as shocked as Pebble.

Pebble removed the headset from his own helmet, digging it out and leaving tiny burns on his hands from the shocks of shorting wires.

'I swear, Stark,' he hissed. 'I'll take you down myself if you leave me til last!'

'I wouldn't have it any other way, Pebble,' Stark said. There was a burst of gunfire, and a scream.

'Six.'

Pebble moved into the room. Gun raised, he made his way over to the remains of the wall where Jag had been crouched before the grenade impacted. Someone was there, face-down; he took off his glove and felt around the neck.

'Sound off, everyone,' Pebble said desperately. 'I'm next to Angle, it looks like the blast knocked him a few feet. I... I can't find his pulse!'

'Turn him over,' Jag said wearily. 'Get him breathing, get him working. If he's still alive, that's one more Stark has to kill before you!'

Pebble hauled Angle over so he was on his back, and removed his helmet. Both he and Angle were young; they had joined in with the rifleman's gang when they found themselves lost and alone in the wastes of New York. They were too small to scavenge enough for themselves, but too fast to be caught by other raiders. It had been a desperate life, until they had joined the raiders.

He dug around in Angle's mouth, checking that his airway was unblocked. It seemd fine; he checked the pulse once again.

'The pulse!' he breathed. 'I-it's there, but it's weak! I think he's fading-'

An explosion to his left. Someone had thrown a grenade. No; judging by that screaming, they had dropped it.

'Five,' Stark said.

'Shut up!' Pebble screamed.

'I see him!' Gunfire.

'Four.'

Pebble rocked himself back and forth against the wall, clutching his head. What could he do? What could he do? What could he _do_? He wanted to scream and shout, he wanted to kill Tony Stark, but the man was a ghost! His squeezed his eyes shut and gritted his teeth, and got up on one knee.

Angle had smoke grenades. He took them from his belt.

'Jag,' he said. 'I know Stark's listening too, but... listen, we can't win this. We need to get out there, the girl and her dog... we take them out, we have Stark. That's an end of it. There are too many of us out there, and we'll be able to blow this place apart. Jag, we've gotta get out. Find me, I'm back near the wall. I need help getting Angle out of here.'

He realised his voice had been shaking as he spoke. He felt the tear tracks down his cheeks; wiping them away, he twisted the cap of the first smoke grenade and tossed it a short distance. It hissed menacingly and disgorged its contents of grey smoke. Another wall against Tony Stark.

There was no reply. Pebble cracked open the second canister and tossed it in the other direction.

There was a crack and a scream from the other side. More screaming, and then silence. Pebble's heart was hammering in his chest, he kept his back tight against the wall and cradled his gun like a child. He felt the tears coming again.

'Three.'

Pebble had a gun in his hand. He stared at it, wondering if the madness would stop if he just plugged himself; the urge took over and his hand started upwards, towards his chin.

There was a thud to one side, as of a door being kicked open, and a groan. Pebble turned towards the noise, his gun coming up to aim at the source automatically. He stared, wide-eyed, trying in vain to pierce the smoke with his vision. But nothing was forthcoming until, out of the smoke, a figure stepped. He saw the outline and quavered; it had to be Stark, it was Tony Stark come to finish him off for even thinking of ending the game! He tried to move, to run for the exit he knew had to be there somewhere, but his legs refused to move. Out of the smoke would come Tony Stark, who would kill him, and then it would be over.

Jag's helmet appeared, his towering figure almost made Pebble faint. Jag's arm came down and lifted Angle easily, and he nodded at Pebble.

'Nice instruction,' he said. 'Come on, the exit's back this way, if only we have the time to find it!'

There was one direction which was free of smoke, a long corridor behind a wooden door. Pebble found new life in his body; he stormed the door and kicked it open easily, animal fear and the ecstasy of hope propelling him onwards. He took point, gun raised as they rounded corners and threaded their way through doorways. He took Angles as was needed, Jag passing the body through narrow openings and down ledges between apartments until they were on the ground.

'We're nearly there!' Jag cried. 'Can you hear the bikes! Those are our angels, and we're nearly with them!'

Pebble _could_ hear them. His eyes gleamed, and though he was winded and broken, he felt powerful! They were there, they were going to do it!

'Just a couple of rooms, I think!' Jag huffed. 'We're there, Pebble! Just get Angle through this door and we're there!'

Pebble shot the door open and grabbed Angle under the armpits. He dragged him through and slung the unconscious biker's arm over his shoulder. Though he was incapacitated, Pebble found he could walk as needed, and this had worked well enough for them so far. Besides, he was not nearly so strong as Jag, who simply cradled the body like a child.

They made it into the living room; it was a straight drop of a few feet if they got through the window. Pebble smashed the panes and searched around for something to break the window frame with.

'Try that!' Jag suggested, pointing to an ancient television. Pebble nodded and hefted it, testing its weight.

And explosion rocked the room, sending him sprawling. Jag was less affected, falling to one knee, but it still caught him off-guard enough for Stark to get a burst of bullets into his back. Undaunted, Jag turned and fired back; Stark grunted and retreated, vanishing into the dust left by the collapsing wall.

'He's here!' Jag cried. 'Pebble, get that window down!'

Pebble crawled over to the television and hauled himself up, supporting his first efforts on the plastic casing. He got to his knees and hugged the thing to his chest, his jaw set and eyes narrowed with determination. Slowly but surely he got to his feet.

The doorway exploded and Stark was in the room, but Jag was ready. Bleeding profusely from his back, he swiped at Tony, knocking the gun from his hands. In retaliation, Tony aimed a blast at his jaw; Jag staggered back under the attack, his helmet broken. He turned to Pebble.

'Get him out, Pebble!' he ordered. 'I'll hold off Stark!'

Pebble glanced back, seeing the blood dripping from Jag's mouth. His nose was bloodied, his jaw looked cracked, if not broken, and there were four bullet holes forming a quarter circle in his broad back. But he turned back to Stark and pounded him with a meaty fist, driving him back. Stark ducked back from the blows, trying to find a clear shot against the man-giant.

Pebble turned back to the window. He didn't have much time; hefting the television set, he stumbled forwards and slammed it against the window frame. It creaked alarmingly but did not break.

Behind him, Jag screamed. Stark aimed a blast wildly and hit his broken arm. The whole arm jarred and fell limp, and his onslaught was halted. But he was not done; he jabbed Tony in the gut even as he fell to his knees. Tony crumpled, but returned fire on that arm; it slammed into the wall, fracturing the hand.

Jag roared, leaping up and aiming a punch at Tony. It connected with his jaw, just; Tony almost rolled out of the way. Instead he spun, landing on his stomach. Jag grabbed him by the leg and pinned it beneath his own shin. Tony's eyes widened.

Pebble brought all his body weight against the window frame alongside the television. It cracked, part of it fell through into the world below. He grimaced, and picked the television up again.

Jag's arm grabbed Tony's shoulder. One leg was jabbed painfully into his back, right behind the gunshot wound Jag had given him moments earlier. Stark saw spots in front of his eyes, felt his head swimming. He was going to lose it, and with only three left! Jag hauled his shoulder up and Tony felt his back creaking alarmingly.

He clenched his hand.

The blast hit Jag in the gut and knocked him sideways into the wall, throwing him from Tony's back. He recovered quickly, but brute instinct was driving Tony's attacks now. He drove an elbow into Jag's eye socket and spun onto his back, blasting him in the head. He leaned into it, taking it in his stride, and Tony kicked out at his broken jaw. Jag growled at the pain and grabbed Tony's hand, meaning to throw him into the wall. But Tony used the momentum to propel himself upwards, blasting at Jag's leg. Jag felt his leg buckle and he was on his knees, but still holding Tony's arm in a death grip. He pulled Tony down and headbutted him, helmet-to-nose. Tony fell backwards and Jag tried desperately to remain conscious.

There were several more cracks. Pebble shoved the last few splinters of window frame out of the window; they dropped slowly compared to the television, which plummeted to the floor below. There was no more time; he grabbed Angle and hauled him to his feet.

'Come on, Angle!' he hissed. 'Use those useless legs, it's time to go!'

Tony's vision swam. His eyes refused to focus, and the only thing he could feel around his face was pain. His nose was bleeding, Jag's helmet had squashed it against his face and now it was broken and misshapen. But Jag was lying on the floor, breathing heavily. Tony's eyes focused on that for a moment before swimming out again, and back in on the gun.

The gun, in between them.

Tony's brain made him move. It was a conscious effort now: _Move your hand! Now your other hand! Get on your knees! Move, crawl, move! Put your hand on that gun! Pick it up!_

Jag was getting to his feet. He was massaging his fist; it would never be the same again. There were no words, there was no time. Tony felt himself falling into the blackness.

 _No! Pick up the gun!_ It sounded like Kate's voice.

 _Pick up the gun, you moron!_ That voice sounded familiar too.

 _It's you or him, Stark, pick it up_. A friend? That one was definitely a friend.

_Survive, Tony. Live one more day. He's at Times Square. Bring him back. Bring us all back._

Tony's eyes opened wide. Suddenly he was focused, at the call of a voice that brought to mind images of stars, of strength, or protection.

The gun was inches away. The foot was not far either. A hand would be reaching down towards the gun, a hand that wasn't his.

It wasn't fast enough.

Tony saw himself aim up. Saw himself pull the trigger. And then he was on his feet.

'Two,' he said. He saw himself aim, at the one who was half out of the window. He fired; the body jerked but it might as well have been dead already.

'One,' he muttered. Pebble stood beside the window, unmoving. He stared at Tony Stark, who returned the stare unblinkingly.

'Do... do you remember him?' Tony asked. Pebble's eyes flicked to the young man hanging out of the window.

'Who?' he asked.

'I don't know,' Tony replied. 'I just... he was there, I saw him. There were stars and there was lightning and, and... and everything was green, and I...' He tailed off and shook his head.

'I didn't want this,' he continued. 'I was just going out to get food, or water! Now I've killed twelve people. Hey Pebble, do you remember who I was before all this started?' Pebble shook his head.

'No,' Tony muttered. 'No, neither do I. Sorry.'

He fired.

Tony dropped the gun and walked over to the window. Angle's body was dangling out of it, riddled with bullet holes. Behind him somewhere, Jag was lying on the floor. Tony fingered the hole in his abdomen and winced; that was gonna take some time to fix.

He shoved the body out of the window and watched it drop to the sand below, rolling away a few feet.

'At least one of you made it out,' he muttered, hauling one leg over the windowsill. He climbed out and hung on with his fingers before dropping the final few feet to the floor.

The arena was strewn with rocks and debris. Bikers were lying on the ground under swinging television sets and computer monitors, or else were strung up in agony in makeshift webs stuck with nails and razors. Tony took Angle's gun and limped towards Kate, who was crouching behind a rock, her bow in hand.

'Hey!' Tony called. She turned, and stared at him in shock. He limped over to her; most of the fighting was done anyway, now was just the mop-up.

'What are you doing?' she asked. 'You're supposed to be back there!'

'I had to clean up,' Tony said. 'I just killed thirteen people; technically, I'm a monster. Also, how am I supposed to get my van out now?'

'I have six arrows left,' Kate sighed. 'How many bullets do you have? There are still some around here, probably crawling around the ruins!'

'They can wait,' Tony said. 'Did you find a bike?'

'There are some around,' Kate said. 'We can probably get enough fuel from them all for a trip to Times Square.'

'Will Lucky be able to follow on?' Kate shook her head. It was too far.

'You don't have to come either,' Tony said. 'This isn't your mission, they weren't after you.'

'They came to my home,' Kate said. 'I think that's reason enough to get to the bottom of this.'

'Alright. We should get going.'

'I haven't seen their leader yet.'

'He'll turn up,' Tony said. 'No doubt as some recurring villain who we think we've defeated, but invariably he returns alive and well!'

'You've had a few of those, haven't you?' Kate said. 'Do you really need one more?'

'Apparently.' Kate sighed again.

'Alright,' she said. 'Let's get packing. I wanna be sorted before sund-'

She didn't have time to finish the sentence before the earth rocketed up around her, and she disappeared underneath the arena.

'Kate!' Tony cried, but he was blown back by the explosion.

By the time he came around, his ears were ringing and there was no sign of Kate or Lucky. He got to his feet unsteadily, searching for them, but they were nowhere nearby. He stared at the hole in the ground, a hole which led into darkness and the ruins underneath the rubble.

'Alright,' he muttered. 'Rubble. Landslides. Potential cave-ins and collapses at every turn.' He sighed, and leapt into the hole.

 

 


	8. Day 4-D/Day 5: Spotlight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kate and Lucky have disappeared into a mysterious cavern underneath the arena, and Tony's got to find them. But where is the leader of the bikers? And what are the strange visions Tony sees underneath the rubble of New York?

The light of the repulsor glove glowed with enough light to illuminate the path for Tony. He stared around the cathedral heights of the rubble, standing in a spotlight of natural light coming down from the hole above. There wasn't much to see: only the pillars of rubble which were currently holding up the arena above.

'Alright,' Tony sighed. 'Let's get on with this.'

He picked his way carefully around fallen masonry and ruined furniture, his hand casting a torchlight into the darkness. Everything lit up blue, long shadows stretching and confusing the full shape of the architecture. He had little to go on; with no idea how long he had been out, any sign of which way Kate had gone would be a treasure.

He found one, after a few minutes of slow, careful searching. Most every surface was covered in a thick layer of brick dust from collapsed buildings, and in several places there were partial bootprints or areas where patches of dust had been swept away from a foot pushing against rock. Having a rough direction, Tony set out through the rubble.

Open, cavernous space soon turned to claustrophobic passages, mazes through which Tony squeezed and crawled, his efforts spurred on by the determination of similar scuff marks where someone else had squeezed through these narrow escapes. Here and there and arrow lost in the darkness, which Tony dutifully reclaimed. There was very little sound save for the occasional distant sputter of a dirt bike cruising above, or the plaintive cries of an injured rider ensnared in a net; somehow these sounds filtered down to Stark, and he heard them plainly in his ears.

The screams got louder, and turned into roars. Rage, anger; Tony shrank back against the bright green light of the tunnel ahead. He blinked several times, clearing his vision; the green was gone, he was in darkness once more.

Something thundered closer behind him. Tony ran forwards as the roars started again, in the distance, squeezing himself through narrow spaces and bruising his ribs against rocks in his effort to push through the spaces. This was so unfair! Kate was smaller than him, and she wasn't being chased by some horrible monster. At least as far as he knew. She might be, he reasoned. But she could handle it.

The passage widened and got tall enough for him to stand up again, and he walked forward as his repulsor flickered slightly. There was another beam of light in this place and Tony headed for it, glad of the marker.

Something silvery, like a dagger, flickered out at his face and caused him to stagger back against a rock; as he did so, someone fired. The light shaft, where he had been heading, caught the chip that was taken out of the floor as a bullet ricocheted off it, and somewhere behind that gunshot Tony thought he heard someone say, 'Watch your back, Stark...'.

Tony stood, back pressed against the reassuringly solid rock, breathing heavily for a while and waiting for his head to clear.

'You're okay, Tony,' he muttered to himself. 'Just seeing things is all. It's all in your head. It's all in your head...'

He rolled his eyes as he added mentally, 'that bullet wasn't, though.' But the torchlight (for that was what it must have been) had moved on. Tony turned off his repulsor glove, the light flickering and dying, and waited several seconds before sneaking out. He allowed his left hand to brush the wall and followed it along, turning with it and keeping as quiet as possible. The wall guided him around the room and he estimated a mental map as he followed it, working out possible passageways and spots of cover. Only when he realised he was fully around the room – which he only did by bashing his head against the tunnel which had taken him in there – did he turn on his repulsor glove again.

It was easy enough to spot clues in here. There had been an ambush – what Tony had been unable to see when his light had been off, were the bodies which littered the floor and the overlook from which his assailant must have been attacking. The cavern was long but fairly narrow, and it had been set up as a shooting gallery of sorts before Kate had pushed through – Tony counted three bodies on his level who must have fallen from the balcony, and there were doubtless more up there. Of the others, another four people had been down here behind cover; this area had been well-lit until recently, they would have been able to see her thanks to floodlights on both levels which would have been pointing in her direction, blinding her. Only that hadn't worked.

'They turned them on at the last possible moment,' Tony muttered, examining the scene. 'But it didn't work...' he counted an arrow in each man, and no more about the place. So where had she gone from here?

'There's a passage out,' Tony said to himself, trying to drown out the thoughts which were coming on, that he had murdered a building full of people in a similar manner. He crouched to inspect the narrow tunnel; it was half-blocked with furniture but otherwise undisturbed. So where...?

Tony turned to the balcony. It was entirely accidental; one building collapsed on top of another, turning one small apartment into this practise range, and the building next door into an upper level. One which Kate had scaled with an arrow and a rope. Tony stared at the wall, searching it for any surface he could climb; the walls were smooth and the collapse had created an overhang of sorts, which made it practically unclimbable by conventional standards. Tony raised his glove.

The blast took down a sizeable chunk of the floor and turned the overhang into a field of rubble which was practically a staircase in comparison to before. Smirking, Tony took a step towards it.

The apartment block shook and then split. It crumpled in half and fell in on itself, slamming together to form an impenetrable wall.

Tony stared at it. He sighed.

'Fine,' he muttered. 'I guess we're gonna see where this path leads...'

-

Night slowly gave way to day. Times Square had long-since stopped shaking with music and screams, and the walls were beginning to shift and struggle their way back to open. Winches groaned into action and heaved and strained against the weight of the metal they were lifting.

Two listened intently, back to the wall, as she heard the distant mechanical sounds. She turned slowly, staring at One and Three.

'How are things?' she asked quietly. One nodded.

'I'm almost better,' he said. 'I heard that pretty clearly. Things are still a little fuzzy, though. Three's okay, he's breathing and his pulse is steady.'

'That's good.' Two focused intently on her feet, hugging her knees to her chest. Her rifle was at her side; she took out the magazine and checked it again.

'Two,' One said. 'How are we alive?' Two started.

'What?'

'That demon was after us, Two. How are we still alive?' Two stared at her gun and shrugged, defeated.

'We didn't see him,' she said. 'That's how.'

-

Tony grunted and crawled his way through the rubble, straining as it narrowed dangerously and threatened to trap him. Sighing, he squeezed himself back into a wider stretch of tunnel and blasted once more at the opening.

This was the third time he had needed to stop and blast through the tunnel. It was twisty and awkward and Tony had to contort his body into difficult positions to even aim at the walls. And the injuries from earlier were not helping; the bullet hole screamed with fiery pain whenever he had to twist awkwardly to fit through, and his back ached from all the stress it had been under. His entire abdomen was a roar of dull, blue-heat pain, and his eyes kept swimming with spots which he had to blink back as he forced himself to crawl on. Every time he fired, his entire arm now went numb. He was sure he was going to break something at this rate, maybe his elbow, or his shoulder.

'Come on, come on!' he muttered to himself, he was breathing heavily now, inching along as he struggled up out of the hole and into another cavern.

This room was different to the previous rooms. Someone had deliberately cleared this out, made it a large space. Very few pillars held it up, only as many as were needed, and some of those had come down. Spots of light came in through the cracks and bathed the whole place in dim grey illumination, allowing Tony to see clearly enough once he had blinked back the light spots from his last repulsor blast. He stared around at the space, and then his eyes caught the leader of the bikers crouching several feet away, on a rocky outcrop. Tony's eyes flickered down, to where Kate lay; whether unconscious or dead, he could not tell.

Tony stood, his eyes never leaving the biker. Likewise, though it was difficult to tell thanks to the visor, the biker stared unabated at Tony.

'How is she?' Tony asked. 'Is she alive? Is she okay?' The biker stared, saying nothing.

'What about Lucky?' Stark continued. 'Is her dog okay?' He took a step forward, and the biker's gun raised. Still at his hip, but the barrel was now pointed unerringly at Tony's chest. Tony's hands went up and he stood stock still.

'Alright,' he said quietly. 'Now, are you gonna tell me what's going on here?'

The two of them stood in silence for some time. Eventually, the biker reached behind himself and pulled something out. He tossed it in Stark's direction.

It was a medical bag.

Tony stared at it. It was slightly dusty but otherwise fine, in fact it seemed unopened. The biker stood.

'You are injured, Mr Stark,' he said. 'When she wakes up, she will teach you how to fix yourself up.'

'Voice modulator, huh?' Tony said. 'So do I know you?'

'What about you?' the biker returned. 'Do you know _you_?'

'What's that supposed to mean?' Tony snapped, taking a step forwards. He stopped short again as the gun was levelled at him effortlessly.

'You have been alone for a long time,' the biker said. 'I took steps to ensure I would not be the same. Someone has to remind you of your true self, after all.'

'So you're some wise witch doctor here to voodoo me better?' Tony asked. 'I don't buy it!'

'Good,' the biker replied. 'I'm not here for that, Mr Stark. I was here to bring you to Times Square, you are needed there.'

'Who's at Times Square?' Tony demanded. 'What do they want with me?' He raised his glove, but the biker shook his head.

'You cannot fire faster than I can,' he said. 'Nor more accurately. Or would you rather I pointed the gun at your friend?' Tony watched as the gun dropped, the barrel now pointing at Kate's head. Tony gasped, but resigned himself.

'Alright,' he sighed. 'So am I going with you now? What's going on?'

'I am simply here to relay a message now, Stark,' the biker said. 'That message is: you are needed in Times Square.'

'And why didn't you say that instead of sending all your guys after me?' Tony asked. The biker stared up at the ceiling.

'Sixty litres,' he mused. 'That is a _lot_ of water, Mr Stark. I suppose isolation gives you one advantage: you don't need to care for others so much, only yourself.'

'Trust me,' Stark replied darkly, 'that's no advantage.'

There was a pause in the conversation as he stared down at the floor. The biker chief stared at him thoughtfully, and then shouldered his rifle.

'I will leave you now, Mr Stark. Remember my message; I am sure I will see you again. Oh and arm yourself – the wastes are not nearly so friendly as you have seen so far.'

With that, he threw the rifle to the floor and walked off into the dimness.

Moments later, Lucky padded out from the shadows and nuzzled gently at Kate. Tony glared at the dog and folded his arms.

'And just where have you been?' he reprimanded quietly. Lucky took no notice, and Tony nodded and sat down heavily.

'Yeah,' he said. 'This was not a fight we needed to fight. Alright, let's see what I can do to myself before you bring her around.'

He opened up the medical bag, spilling its contents onto the floor.

 


End file.
